Leads for the Sales Force - Not

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan
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Everyone Can Sell. Not Really. Top 10 Reasons Why Not - By Dave Kurlan

I received an email last week from a LinkedIn connection promoting his new super duper lead engine that connects salespeople with the most powerful buying influences in the world.

Wow.

I'll be the first to agree that if you're buying a list, one that actually contains the contact information for CEO's, Presidents and other top officers can be much more helpful than a list that targets middle managers. But let's stop there.

First, a list with the names of CEO's and Presidents won't help anyone who sells products or services that top executives don't buy.

Second, and let's not fool ourselves on this, these are NOT LEADS!!! They never were and they never will be. Call them what they are. They are names on a list and if hand them to your salespeople and call them leads they'll stop calling after about 5 conversations - lousy leads. If you let them know that they are simply a tool to help them identify potential customers you'll be in much better shape. Just be sure that they know how to make calls like this. The "how" is the key. If they aren't great at this then it's clearly a waste of time.

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Everyone Can Sell. Not Really. Top 10 Reasons Why Not - By Dave Kurlan

About the Author: Dave Kurlan

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Dave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling (Dan Seidman), Stepping Stones (Deepak Chopra and Brian Tracey) and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (David Riklan).
Click here to visit Dave's website.

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